Mecklenburg County plans to turn the empty former Collinswood Language Academy campus near Scaleybark Road into parks and housing. County commissioners voted Oct. 20 to buy the 15-acre site at 4000 Applegate Road from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for $15 million, a week after the sale went before the school board. The school itself still operates, in newer buildings beside the former Smith School site on Tyvola Road, county staff told commissioners in May.
Commissioners also authorized the county manager that night to negotiate the acquisition of a $16.78 million office building at 4100 South Stream Blvd. in southwest Charlotte "to serve as a professional office building for CMS district staff." CMS says the building would let it move staff training out of E.E. Waddell High School and reopen Waddell as a full high school in the 2028-29 school year.
The county's motion and the CMS board's records each describe the building purchase as their own. The county's motion authorizes the county manager to acquire it from its owner, RBM Skyline Investors LLC. The CMS board's Oct. 27 agenda lists the same building, at the same price, as a CMS purchase "to be funded by the sale of surplus properties no longer needed by the district." It does not say whether the county's $15 million is part of that money, and neither board's record explains how the two fit together.
Mark Jerrell, chair of the county board, read both motions after a closed session, and no commissioner spoke to either motion when it was read. Each passed on a voice vote with one commissioner heard opposed. The meeting video does not show who, and the county had posted no minutes or recorded votes as of Oct. 29.
The Collinswood campus
The district's write-up for the sale called the property "vacant and no longer desirable for public school purposes" and said the old school was used as administrative space until this year. The county's motion does not say how much of the land would become parkland or how many homes might be built there.
On Oct. 6, the county's Park and Recreation Commission told commissioners in its annual report that the county should not part with CMS land that could serve as parks, and pointed to the old Collinswood site as a place for youth sports fields, which it said are in short supply. It acknowledged competing priorities for the land and said there was "a way to combine all of our priorities."
The sale was on the CMS board's Oct. 13 consent agenda, the list of routine items a board takes up together. Members voted on that list by a show of hands, and the chair counted seven in favor, one opposed and one abstention. CMS has posted no minutes for the meeting.
It is not the first CMS property the county has agreed to buy this year. In April, commissioners voted to buy the Smith site, 8.2 acres, for $4.5 million; county staff said in May that the plan there is housing for county and CMS employees.
The office building
The CMS write-up says the building, which it puts at more than 126,000 square feet, would house the district's Human Resources and its Recruitment, Retention and Talent Development teams.
The purchase was listed on the CMS board's posted Oct. 27 consent agenda. Before the board voted on that list, it pulled three consent items, identified on tape only by letter, and the record does not show whether the building was among them. The rest were voted on by a show of hands; the chair did not announce the result, and CMS has posted no minutes.
The money
Both prices come in under the county's 2026 tax values, $15,383,300 for the Collinswood parcel and $18,100,300 for the office building, county property records show.
Commissioners did not say where the money would come from when the motions were read. Later that night, during a discussion of the county's Brooklyn Village redevelopment, Commissioner George Dunlap listed CMS land the county is considering buying among its housing projects and said the county does not "have the money to get to all of them." He said it is trying to keep as much money as it can in its fund balance, the county's reserves. Neither board's record says when either sale is to close.